Application wire

ABSTRACT

Transferring data over a network includes identifying an application flow and mapping the application flow to a network bound connection.

CROSS REFERENCE TO OTHER APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/055,721, filed on Oct. 16, 2013, and entitled “Application Wire,”which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/543,727,filed Oct. 5, 2006, which claims priority to U.S. ProvisionalApplication No. 60/725,038, filed Oct. 7, 2005 and entitled “Applicationwire: mapping application streams to pseudo-wires.” The entireties ofthese related applications are incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

In recent years, network service providers have been upgrading andmanaging networks based on Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS)technology. MPLS has been deployed in most backbone networks. MPLSprovides capabilities such as Quality of Service (QoS), redundancy,Operations Administration and Maintenance (OAM), and Virtual PrivateNetwork (VPN). MPLS is typically used to provision and manage datastreams at individual flow levels. Each flow is known as a LabelSwitched Path (LSP). Existing MPLS systems typically handle data trafficat the Layer-3 (IP) level and below.

Some MPLS networks use Pseudowires to map Open System Interconnections(OSI) Layer-1 or Layer-2 traffic flows into “virtual circuits.” APseudowire refers to the emulation of a Layer-1 or Layer-2 nativeservice over a network. Examples of native services include AsynchronousTransfer Mode (ATM), Frame Relay, Ethernet Virtual Local Area Network(VLAN), Time Division Multiplexing (TDM), Synchronous Optical Network(SONET), Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH), etc. In the control plane,the Pseudowires are maintained and managed using a simplified version ofLabel Distribution Protocol (LDP), the Target LDP. Each Pseudowire isassociated with an MPLS label for packet forwarding and a control wordfor flow management.

Since existing MPLS networks only allow Layer-1 or Layer-2 connectionsto be mapped to Pseudowires in a one-to-one mapping, the systemtypically cannot guarantee the QoS for individual applications thatgenerate application data in Layer-3 or above. QoS behavior in theapplication layer is sometimes different from the behavior in Layer-1 orLayer-2. For example, packet video streams can generally tolerateout-of-sequence delivery, and packet voice traffic can sometimestolerate packet loss but is sensitive to packet delay. Existing Layer-1and Layer-2 systems, however, typically do not address network-level QoSfor these voice and video applications.

Some proposed IP-based models have been developed to address the QoSrequirement associated with applications, but some issues remain. Forexample, the IntServ/RSVP model identifies connections by applicationsbased on the IP addresses of the source and destination, the protocoltype, and the protocol's source and destination port number (togetherknown as the 5-tuple). Each connection is required to comply with anumber of service parameters such as bandwidth consumption and delaybudget. As a result, the intermediate nodes (such as the core routers)are required to store the identity of all the connections, perform deeppacket inspection, and implement extensive QoS mechanisms to satisfy theservice parameters for each flow. Network service providers tend to findthis model limiting because it is not very scalable as the number ofusers grow.

The DiffServ model addresses the scalability problems associated withthe IntServ/RSVP model. Instead of handling QoS on a per flow basis, theuser applications are classified into a small number of uniformlydefined traffic classes. Each data packet stores its traffic classinformation in its IP header. At each intermediate node, the packetreceives appropriate QoS treatment according to its traffic class. SinceDiffServ provides relative QoS, in order to guarantee QoS to aparticular flow, the model typically requires the network bandwidth tobe over-provisioned. Further, the model only incorporates a subset ofavailable QoS technology, such as priority queuing and Random EarlyDiscard (RED) in dealing with temporary traffic congestion. The model isoften not applicable in networks where physical links cannot besufficiently over-provisioned.

It would be useful to have a way to better manage application trafficover a carrier network without requiring changes to the intermediatenodes. It would also be desirable if QoS guarantee can be achieved atper-application flow level. Furthermore, the solution should to bescalable.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Various embodiments of the invention are disclosed in the followingdetailed description and the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a system diagram illustrating an example of an MPLS basednetwork supporting Pseudowires.

FIG. 2 is a system diagram illustrating an example of a networksupporting Application Wires.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating an embodiment of a process fortransferring data.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating another embodiment of a process forhandling ingress data streams.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating the format of a Real Time Protocol(RTP) packet example.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a Pseudowire encapsulatedMPEG-4 packet.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating an embodiment of a process forhandling data traffic in the egress direction.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of an applicationflow engine.

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an example of a multicast environmentsupporting Application Wires.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The invention can be implemented in numerous ways, including as aprocess, an apparatus, a system, a composition of matter, a computerreadable medium such as a computer readable storage medium or a computernetwork wherein program instructions are sent over optical orcommunication links. In this specification, these implementations, orany other form that the invention may take, may be referred to astechniques. A component such as a processor or a memory described asbeing configured to perform a task includes both a general componentthat is temporarily configured to perform the task at a given time or aspecific component that is manufactured to perform the task. In general,the order of the steps of disclosed processes may be altered within thescope of the invention.

A detailed description of one or more embodiments of the invention isprovided below along with accompanying figures that illustrate theprinciples of the invention. The invention is described in connectionwith such embodiments, but the invention is not limited to anyembodiment. The scope of the invention is limited only by the claims andthe invention encompasses numerous alternatives, modifications andequivalents. Numerous specific details are set forth in the followingdescription in order to provide a thorough understanding of theinvention. These details are provided for the purpose of example and theinvention may be practiced according to the claims without some or allof these specific details. For the purpose of clarity, technicalmaterial that is known in the technical fields related to the inventionhas not been described in detail so that the invention is notunnecessarily obscured.

Transferring data over a network using Application Wires is disclosed.An Application Wire refers to the emulation of a virtual circuit or atransparent wire for transferring one or multiple application flows. AnApplication Wire maps one or more application flows into Pseudowires,and is at the same time aware of the application protocol and theprotocol requirements associated with the application flows. As usedherein, an application flow refers to a set of packets exchanged betweentwo or more devices for accomplishing a specific function. Applicationflow data includes data associated with Layer-4 or above as defined bythe OSI protocol stack. In some embodiments, an application flowincludes data packets transmitted and received by an application, suchas a Voice over IP (VoIP) session, instant messaging, Video-on-Demand(VoD), etc. The application may be configured to operate on variouswired, wireless, or hybrid devices. The interface between theapplication and the underlying network is provided by protocols such asthe Session Initialization Protocol (SIP) and the Real-time TransportProtocol (RTP). From the perspective of the application, transferringdata over an Application Wire has the same effect as transferring dataover a dedicated wire. As will be shown in more detail below, in someembodiments, Application Wires are formed by mapping application flowsto Pseudowires.

FIG. 1 is a system diagram illustrating an example of an MPLS basednetwork supporting Pseudowires. In this example, client devices such as102 and 104 reside on an edge network and transfer data to an edgedevice (also referred to as an edge node) 106. The edge node, forexample an edge router, supports MPLS and is capable of mapping Layer-1and Layer-2 data streams into Pseudowires. Each data stream is mapped toa single Pseudowire in a one-to-one mapping. Each packet in thePseudowire is encapsulated with an MPLS label for forwarding, andincludes a control word for flow management. The edge device forwardsthe packet to a core network that includes core routers such as 108. Thecore network is compatible with MPLS and IP. The end user traffic flowsare mapped to Pseudowires and then fed to the core network. ThePseudowires are maintained throughout the core network. The Pseudowiresterminate at edge node 109, which receives the Pseudowire traffic andforwards the packets to their appropriate destinations such as devices110 and 112. Traffic from devices such as 110 and 112 to devices such as102 and 104 is processed similarly.

Since the mapping of one data stream to one Pseudowire does not accountfor the bandwidth demand of individual applications generating trafficon the client devices, it is often difficult to guarantee the quality ofservice (QoS) for these individual applications. For example, assumingthat Pseudowires A and B each support a data rate of 50 Mbps, and thatthe application executing on device 102 require 70 Mbps of bandwidthwhile the application on device 104 only requires 20 Mbps. Because ofthe one-to-one mapping, the bandwidth requirement of device 102 is notmet by Pseudowire, even though there is excess capacity on the networkoverall.

Application Wires improve on the Pseudowire scheme described above. FIG.2 is a system diagram illustrating an example of a network supportingApplication Wires. In this example, client devices 202-206 areconfigured to communicate with client devices 208-218 in the followingmanner: device 202 communicates with devices 208, 210, and 212; device204 with device 214; device 206 with devices 216 and 218. Specifically,one or more applications executing on each client device send data toand receive data from applications executing on other client devices.Application flows a-f are shown between devices 202-206 and 208-218.

At the edge of the core network, edge nodes 220 and 222 are configuredto transfer the data streams between a core network (such as a backbonenetwork of a service provider) and the client devices. As used herein,data traffic is said to be in the ingress direction if it is beingtransferred from client devices to the core network, and in the egressdirection if it is being transferred from the core network to clientsdevices. A data connection that transfers data in the ingress directionis referred to as a network-bound connection. Depending on the directionof the data flow, an edge node may be referred to as an ingress node oran egress node.

As will be shown in more detail below, the edge nodes map theapplication flows into Pseudowires in the ingress direction. A number ofmapping schemes are possible, such as a one-to-one mapping, adistributed mapping where an application flow is mapped to multiplePseudowires, or an aggregated mapping where multiple flows are mapped toa single Pseudowire. In the example shown, application flows a and b areone-to-one mapped to a separate Pseudowire each, application flow d isdistributed to Pseudowires d1 and d2, and application flows e and f areaggregated to a single Pseudowire (e+f). The mapping scheme for eachapplication flow is selected based at least in part on the bandwidth andtraffic requirement associated with the application. In the egressdirection, packets transferred on the Pseudowires are reassembled to thecorresponding application flows and sent to the appropriatedestinations. Each Pseudowire may span a plurality of intermediate nodessuch as core routers 230 and 232. Unlike data transfer schemes wheredeep packet inspection is required at each intermediate node, theintermediate nodes used in this example can be standard MPLS devices andno change is required to make them support the Application Wire scheme.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating an embodiment of a process fortransferring data. Process 300 may be implemented on an edge node andcan be used to process data streams in the ingress direction. In thisexample, the process initiates by identifying an application flowassociated with a data stream being transferred over the network (302).Depending on the data stream, there may be one or more application flowswithin the same data stream. The identification may be achieved, forexample, by inspecting the headers of the packets in the data stream.Further details of the identification process are discussed below. Onceidentified, the application flow is mapped to one or more network-boundconnections such as Pseudowires (304) in accordance with therequirements of the application, forming one or more Application Wires.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating another embodiment of a process forhandling ingress data streams. Process 400 may be implemented on an edgenode. In this example, process 400 initiates when a data packet isreceived (402). The header information of the received packet is read(404). The header information is used to identify the application flow.For purposes of example, it is assumed that the data stream carries IPdata and that the data packet is an IP packet. Other types of data canbe processed similarly based on the corresponding header formats. Inthis example, the IP packet includes a Layer-2 MAC header having fieldssuch as the Ethernet addresses of the source and the destination. The IPpacket further includes higher layer headers such as Layer-4 applicationprotocol headers. The combination of various headers is used to identifyspecific application flows.

It is useful to inspect an example of a packet to understand how theapplication flow identification is done. FIG. 5 is a diagramillustrating the format of a Real Time Protocol (RTP) packet example.Packet 500 shown in the example is an MPEG-4 packet. It includes aheader portion 502 and a payload portion 504. The header portionincludes a Layer-3 (IPv4) header 506, and Layer-4 headers which in thiscase include UDP header 508 and RTP header 510. Several fields from eachof the headers are extracted to provide information useful foridentifying the application flow, including the IP source address and IPdestination address, protocol type (which is UDP in this example), UDPsource port, UDP destination port, synchronization source (SSRC)identifier, and contributing source (CSRC) identifier. Some of thefields are optional in some embodiments. Other types of applicationssuch as Voice over IP or instant messaging can be identified using asimilar technique, although different headers and fields may be used.

Returning to FIG. 4, the header information associated with the packetis looked up in a database of application flows (406). If the headerinformation is not found in the database, it is determined whether a newapplication flow can be created based on the header information (407).If so, a new entry that includes information identifying the newapplication flow is created in the application flow database (408). If anew application flow cannot be created, the packet is discarded andappropriate error handling such as event logging is optionallyperformed. New application flows are disallowed in some embodimentswhere the system is configured to only allow pre-configured applicationflows.

If, however, the header information is found in the database, the packetis mapped to an application flow (410). Admission control is optionallyperformed on the flow (412). In various embodiments, admission controlincludes shaping traffic by changing the packets priority, applying apolicy/rule, tagging, dropping the packet, etc. If the packet is notdropped by admission control, it is mapped to one or more Pseudowiresconfigured to service the application flow (414). In some embodiments, adatabase of available Pseudowires is searched to find one or moresuitable Pseudowires for carrying the application flow. The mapping isbased on, among other things, IP routing or manual configuration.

As previously discussed, the mapping of application flow to Pseudowiremay be one-to-one, N-to-one, or one-to-N. One-to-one mapping is the moststraightforward. Sometimes multiple application flows are aggregatedinto a single flow (N-to-one). Aggregation is appropriate when, forexample, the application flows are similar and have the same prioritylevel. Sometimes, an application flow is distributed into multiplestreams and transferred over the network via multiple Pseudowires(one-to-N). For example, a large flow exceeding a certain data ratethreshold may be split into several Pseudowires to better utilize theavailable bandwidth. The division of the application flow into multiplestreams is based at least in part on application-specific parameters.For example, a large RTP stream is sometimes split based on SSRC orpay-load frame type. In one example, an application flow involves alarge RTP stream having a large amount of MPEG traffic over a networkwithout any per flow QoS guarantee. To reduce the impact of droppedpackets, the more important packets such as M-frames in the applicationflow are separated from the rest. The important packets are mapped to aPseudowire with a higher priority level. The rest of the packets aremapped to one or more lower priority Pseudowires.

Returning to FIG. 4, once the appropriate Pseudowire for sending thepacket is determined, the packet is encapsulated with a Pseudowireheader (416) and sent to the core MPLS/IP network (418). FIG. 6 is adiagram illustrating an example of a Pseudowire encapsulated MPEG-4packet. In this example, a Pseudowire header 602 is pre-pended to packet600. The Pseudowire header includes packet label information, which hasthe same format as the of an MPLS packet. In addition to the labelinformation, several other fields are updated to provide informationuseful for the Application Wire. The sequence number field is used tokeep packets in the application flow in the correct order. Ingresspackets are assigned sequence numbers in the order they are received bythe edge node. The EXP field is used to store service differentiationinformation such as priority level. The differentiation information isencoded according to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)'sRequest For Comments (RFC) 3270. The differentiation information, whichis derived based on the service parameters associated with theapplication flow, gives service providers greater control over servicequality for individual flows. In some embodiments, the reserved field inthe control word is used for functions such as OAM (e.g. the VCCVfunction), service guarantee, protection, and flow control.

Since the resulting packet is an MPLS formatted packet, it can beprocessed by any intermediate nodes on the network (e.g. network routersand switches as) a regular MPLS packet. So long as the intermediate nodeis a standard MPLS enabled device, no modification is required of thedevice for processing an Application Wire related packet.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating an embodiment of a process forhandling data traffic in the egress direction. Process 700 may beimplemented on an edge node on the termination end of a Pseudowire. Inthis example, process 700 initiates when a packet is received on aPseudowire (702). The application flow that corresponds to thePseudowire is identified (704). In some embodiments, the identificationis accomplished by looking up in a database that maps Pseudowires toapplication flows. In the event that the Pseudowire is configured tocarry more than one application flow, the packet header is furtherinspected to locate the matching application flow.

Since it is possible for packets sent on different Pseudowires to arriveout of order, the packets are re-sequenced as appropriate (706). In someembodiments, the re-sequencing includes re-sequencing at the Pseudowirelevel. The sequence number field in the Pseudowire header is examinedand used to sort the packets in the appropriate sequence. In someembodiments, the re-sequencing includes an application flow levelre-sequencing. Application header and/or payload information is used tosort packets belonging to the same application flow in the appropriateorder. For example, the SSRC and the sequence numbers in the RTP header,as well as the payload data are used in some embodiments to re-sequencean RTP flow. Once re-sequenced, the Pseudowire header of the packet isremoved and the packet is forwarded to its destination (708).

In some embodiments, processes 300, 400 and 700 are carried out by anapplication flow engine (AFE). FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating anembodiment of an application flow engine. In this example, AFE 800 isincluded in an edge node device. The components of the AFE may beimplemented as software, firmware, hardware or a combination thereof.The AFE is configured to send data streams from the client devices tothe core network as well as to receive data streams from the networkdesignated for client devices on the edge network.

When handling ingress data streams, the AFE identifies and mapsapplication flows in the data streams to a plurality of Pseudowires. Theapplication flows are denoted as F={f₁, f₂, . . . f_(n)} and thePseudowires are denoted as W={w₁, w₂, . . . w_(m)}. An application flowidentifier 806 identifies new application flows in the data stream, andstores information associated with the application flows in a databaselabeled as an application flow table (AFT) 802. The AFT is also used toidentify data packets that match application flows already stored in theAFT. Information stored in the AFT includes, among other things, flowidentification information and service parameters. The flowidentification information includes attributes used to identify thespecific application flow and may vary depending on the application. Forexample, for an RTP-based application flow, the corresponding IP sourceand destination addresses, UDP protocol type, UDP source and destinationport number, SSRC and CSRC are recorded in the AFT. Examples of theservice parameters include various measured or assigned characteristics,such as the average and peak bandwidth of the flow, the burst size, theimportance level of the flow (for example, emergency 911 traffic isassigned the highest importance and can preempt other flows at runtime),sub-flow information such as the bandwidth and importance levelsassociated with different sources, as well as other applicationdependent information such as whether to allow out-of-sequence packetsin the flow. In some embodiments, at least a part of the AFT ispopulated ahead of time by the service provider. For example, theservice parameters may be manually configured or populated using aconfiguration file when the system is initialized. Having apre-populated AFT allows the service providers to offer different levelsof services, and/or provide QoS guarantee based on subscription.

In FIG. 8, a mapper 808 maps incoming data packets to appropriateapplication flows if possible, and optionally performs admission controlfunctions on the data flows. The mapper also maps each application flowto one or more Pseudowires based on information stored in a Pseudowiretable (PWT) 804. A Pseudowire filter 810 encapsulates the packets withPseudowire headers. The encapsulated packets are sent to the corenetwork.

In some embodiments, the PWT maintains the network-bound Pseudowires,W={w₁, w₂, . . . w_(m)}. For each Pseudowire, w_(j), the followingattributes are stored in one example: MPLS label for in packetencapsulation, QoS information indicating the level of QoS to be appliedto the Pseudowire, Protection Path information identifying one or morebackup Pseudowires used to protect this Pseudowire, OAM capabilityinformation used for error detection and loop-back, Multicast groupinginformation such as group ID used to transport multicast traffic overthe MPLS/IP network.

When handling egress data streams, a process similar to 700 is carriedout by the AFE. The PWT is used to look up the application flows thatcorrespond to the packets received on various Pseudowires. The mapperre-sequences the packets, removes the Pseudowire headers, and forwardsthe packets to the destination.

The Application Wire techniques described above are also applicable forenvironments in which multimedia streams are multicasted to multiplesites in the network. To support multicast over Application Wires, afully-meshed Pseudowire network for each multicast group is set up.Various mechanisms for supporting Pseudowire based multicast can beused, including Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) and IP LAN Service(IPLS).

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an example of a multicast environmentsupporting Application Wires. In the example shown, application flowmapping is performed at any given network edge node, and a copy of thedata packet is forwarded to all the other edge nodes in the group. Insome embodiments, a packet is transmitted following these steps: for anapplication flow, f_(i) ^(G), that belongs to a multicast group, G, thePWT is searched and the adjacencies (i.e., the other edge nodes of thegroup denoted as A_(k) ^(G), A_(k+1) ^(G) . . . ) are obtained. A copyof the data packet is sent to each adjacency. Between a pair of edgenodes (i.e., one adjacency), there may be multiple Pseudowires, A_(k)^(G)={w_(j) ^(G), w_(j+1) ^(G). . . }. As described above, anapplication flow may be split among the Pseudowires, according toapplication-specific parameters.

On an egress network edge node, the Pseudowire headers of the packetsare removed, the packets are reassembled and/or re-sequenced asnecessary, and forwarded to the destination. Any IP or Layer-2 multicastscheme may be used to forward the packets to a destination beyond thenetwork edge nodes.

An Application Wire based data transfer technique has been described.The technique gives service providers greater flexibility in providingservices based on applications, without requiring changes tointermediate devices.

Although the foregoing embodiments have been described in some detailfor purposes of clarity of understanding, the invention is not limitedto the details provided. There are many alternative ways of implementingthe invention. The disclosed embodiments are illustrative and notrestrictive.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method, comprising: identifying, by a systemcomprising at least one processor, a first subset of data packets havinga defined priority based on a parameter associated with an applicationflow; assigning, by the system, the first subset of the data packets toa first data stream; assigning, by the system, a second subset of thedata packets that excludes the first subset of the data packets to asecond data stream; encapsulating, by the system, a first data packet ofthe first data stream with a first pseudowire header associated with afirst pseudowire; and encapsulating, by the system, a second data packetof the second data stream with a second pseudowire header associatedwith a second pseudowire.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein theassigning the first subset and the assigning the second subset comprisesassigning the first subset and assigning the second subset in responseto determining that the data packets exceed an available data rate ofthe first pseudowire.
 3. The method of claim 1, further comprising: inresponse to determining that a first priority of the first pseudowire ishigher than a second priority of the second pseudowire, mapping, by thesystem, the first data stream to the first pseudowire.
 4. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising identifying, by the system, the applicationflow based on header information associated with at least one of thedata packets.
 5. The method of claim 4, further comprising mapping, bythe system, the at least one of the data packets to the application flowbased on the header information.
 6. The method of claim 4, furthercomprising determining, by the system, the parameter based on theapplication flow.
 7. The method of claim 1, further comprising setting,by the system, at least one of a packet label field, a sequence numberfield, a service differentiation field, a service guarantee field, or aflow control field in at least one of the first pseudowire header or thesecond pseudowire header.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein theencapsulating the first data packet yields a first encapsulated datapacket, and the encapsulating the second data packet yields a secondencapsulated data packet, and the method further comprises: sending, bythe system, the first encapsulated data packet over the first pseudowirevia one or more first multi-protocol label switching devices; andsending, by the system, the second encapsulated data packet over thesecond pseudowire via one or more second multi-protocol label switchingdevices.
 9. A device, comprising: a memory that stores executableinstructions; and a processor, communicatively coupled to the memory,that executes or facilitates execution of the executable instructions toat least: determine a first subset of data packets that have a definedpriority based on a parameter associated with an application flow;assign the first subset of the data packets to a first data stream;assign a second subset of the data packets that excludes the firstsubset of the data packets to a second data stream; encapsulate a firstdata packet of the first data stream with a first pseudowire headercorresponding to a first pseudowire; and encapsulate a second datapacket of the second data stream with a second pseudowire headercorresponding to a second pseudowire.
 10. The device of claim 9, whereinthe processor further executes or facilitates the execution of thecomputer-executable instructions to assign the first subset of the datapackets to the first data stream and assign the second subset of thedata packets to the second data stream in response to a determinationthat a data flow of the data packets exceeds a defined data rate of thefirst pseudowire.
 11. The device of claim 9, wherein the processorfurther executes or facilitates the execution of the computer-executableinstructions to: compare a first priority associated with the firstpseudowire with a second priority associated with the second pseudowire;and assign the first data stream to the first pseudowire based on adetermination that the first priority exceeds the second priority. 12.The device of claim 9, wherein the processor further executes orfacilitates the execution of the computer-executable instructions toidentify the application flow based on header information read from atleast one of the data packets.
 13. The device of claim 12, wherein theprocessor further executes or facilitates the execution of thecomputer-executable instructions to assign the at least one of the datapackets to the application flow based on the header information.
 14. Thedevice of claim 12, wherein the processor further executes orfacilitates the execution of the computer-executable instructions todetermine the parameter based on identification of the application flow.15. The device of claim 9, wherein at least one of the first pseudowireheader or the second pseudowire header comprises at least one of apacket label field, a sequence number field, a service differentiationfield, a service guarantee field, or a flow control field.
 16. Thedevice of claim 9, wherein encapsulation of the first data packet andthe second data packet yields a first encapsulated data packet and asecond encapsulated data packet, respectively, and the processor furtherexecutes or facilitates the execution of the computer-executableinstructions to: transfer the first encapsulated data packet over thefirst pseudowire via one or more first multi-protocol label switchingdevices; and transfer the second encapsulated data packet via the secondpseudowire using one or more second multi-protocol label switchingdevices.
 17. A computer-readable storage device having stored thereoncomputer-executable instructions that, in response to execution, cause adevice comprising a processor to perform operations, comprising:identifying a first subset of data packets having a defined prioritybased on a parameter associated with an application flow; assigning thefirst subset of the data packets to a first data stream; assigning asecond subset of the data packets excluding the first subset to a seconddata stream; encapsulating a first data packet of the first data streamwith a first pseudowire header corresponding to a first pseudowire; andencapsulating a second data packet of the second data stream with asecond pseudowire header corresponding to a second pseudowire.
 18. Thecomputer-readable storage device of claim 17, the operations furthercomprising determining that a data rate of the data packets exceeds anavailable data rate of the first pseudowire, wherein the assigning thefirst subset and the assigning the second subset comprises assigning thefirst subset and assigning the second subset in response to thedetermining.
 19. The computer-readable storage device of claim 17, theoperations further comprising: determining that a first priorityassigned to the first pseudowire exceeds a second priority assigned tothe second pseudowire; and mapping the first data stream to the firstpseudowire in response to the determining.
 20. The computer-readablestorage device of claim 17, wherein the encapsulating the first datapacket yields a first encapsulated data packet, the encapsulating thesecond data packet yields a second encapsulated data packet, and theoperations further comprise: sending the first encapsulated data packetvia the first pseudowire using one or more first multi-protocol labelswitching devices; and sending the second encapsulated data packet viathe second pseudowire using one or more second multi-protocol labelswitching devices.